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Welcome to the Blog

Here, you'll find everything we've published over the years, from newest to oldest, including our expat adventures, traveler stories, and more.

Vang Vieng Weekend

We’re definitely overdue for some Vang Vieng time. Following a couple of failed attempts we’re finally back in this amazingly beautiful and seductive place.

Return of the Monsoon

When the rains came, they came with a fury. It rained intermittently throughout the weekend, and then for three straight days with literally no break. Our dry, dusty neighborhood turned to mush, and our freshly weeded and trimmed yard quickly […]

Eleven Months Old

Noe just turned eleven months old this past May 21st, which means he’s mere weeks away from being A ONE-YEAR-OLD! And consequently, mere weeks away from officially becoming a toddler.

Laos Life: 1-8 May 2017

The first week of May was about the most fun and relaxing we’ve had in a while here in Vientiane. The weather’s been brutally hot over the past week, but we know that the wet season is just around the […]

Nathe Village & Casino Roy-Lao

We spent the May Day holiday weekend here in Laos, only about 15 miles (as the crow flies) from our house, but a whole other world from central Vientiane. This is what we missed about Laos when we were trying […]

River Time

Lori and I decided it was time to get back to Rivertime Ecolodge and Resort to expel the bad juju of our last visit and have ourselves a relaxing weekend on the river — and there are few places we […]

Laos Life: 20-28 April 2017

We had about ten days between the end of the Pi Mai holiday and the May Day/ Worker’s Day/ Labor Day holiday weekend to relax at home and spend some time in Vientiane. Well, relax, I suppose is a relative term […]

Noe’s 10th Month

Well, it’s official. The Mister is quickly becoming a little boy right before our very eyes. No longer content to be catered to, he wants to do everything himself […]

Konglor: Rave at the Cave

Racing through 7 km-long Konglor Cave on a longtail boat was one of the highlights of our motorbiking adventure around Central Laos in 2012, so we were very excited to have the chance to relive the experience in 2017. But what about Noe, you ask? He’s coming too, of course!

Lao New Year in Konglor Village

Sabaidee Pi Mai! It’s Pi Mai time in Laos! That festive time of year when the temps and crime soars, beer and water flow unrestrained, social mores are cast aside, and expats attempt to flee Vientiane in droves […]

Laos Life: 1-9 April 2017

It’s Pi Mai season in Laos! Pi Mai is Lao New Year — the biggest and most widely-celebrated festival in all of Laos! It also coincides with the hottest time of year here in Laos, […]

Night at the Museum

The National Museum is moving out of its downtown home of forty years. So, how do Laotians mark such an occasion? With a little Michael Jackson, of course.

Date Night

Date night in Vientiane! Three bars, two puzzling toilets, and one quirky French restaurant. About as exciting as it gets for a date night around here, and that’s just fine with us. In a previous post, I mentioned that we […]

9 Months with Noe

Nine Months!!! Another eventful month with the Mister in Laos. He’s [scarily] becoming more and more human every day, which is both exciting and challenging […]

Hospital Days in Thailand

After bribing Thai nurses in miniskirts with his cuddles, Noe gets moved from the ICU to the ward, and I lose my creepy (yet kind of awesome) bachelor pad.

Laos Life: 7-12 March 2017

Noe’s back on his feet after feeling a bit under the weather the past few days. Seems that everyone’s kids are sick these days. Cold season, I guess. Well, not cold as in cool, of course. We’ve been having something […]

Naga View

Noe seems to have strange fixation on the sunrise, as he wakes Lori up right about then every morning to feed. Can’t say I blame him. It’s been too long since we visited our beloved “Baby Lady” restaurant and […]

Sunday Fun-Day

Saturday was all about getting stuff done. A visit to ITECC mall to get some lightbulbs and other odds and ends was in order. We were having some unusual weather — overcast and considerably cooler than it had been, and wondered […]

8 Months Old

Our little baby boy is growing like a weed. This month it seems as though Noe’s gone and become a little person. He’s becoming much more opinionated about things, and also learning new ways to […]

Endless Summer

We had something of a “heat wave” this past week. Temperatures soared to the mid to upper 90s (F). Sounds more dramatic than it actually was. When it’s regularly hitting the upper 80s over several weeks, a jump to the mid-90s […]

Laos Life: 27 Jan – 8 Feb 2017

Friday morning at the French Clinic. Nope, Lori’s not trying out new DME (Durable Medical Equipment) for work. While running down a very good road at sunrise, her heel landed on an errant rock […]

Seven Months

It’s that time of the month again… And the Mister has had quite a month. Hard to believe it’s been seven months with this guy. At times, whole months seem to speed by in the […]

Departures

Up early at 6am to catch tak bat, the almsgiving for which Luang Prabang is famous. Despite having visited Luang Prabang since moving to Laos in September, this is our first time up to see tak […]

Luang Prabang: Bamboo Bridges

Monday morning in Luang Prabang with family and friends. Miraculously, we beat the retirees to breakfast. Not sure how that happened with the babe, but it happened. A good morning to be up early […]

Two More for the Road

Ten days into Lori’s parents’ stay in Vientiane, we added two more guests to the mix — John and Shirley, close family friends from Portland, Oregon. Shirley (not to be confused with Lori’s mom, […]

Déjà Vu

When we have visitors anywhere, we generally like to distribute the time across places and things we’ve seen and done with some new adventures as well. From the first week in Laos, we started to make a mental list of places to […]

Grammy & Grampy Visit Laos

Grammy and Grandpa arrived on a Saturday evening, fresh off a flight from Tapei (via Hanoi). They had been traveling with a couple of close family friends who planned to join us all in another ten days. For now, it […]

New Year’s on the Nam Ngum

I snuck out of our bungalow at Green View Resort while Lori and Noe were still fast asleep to get some much needed kayaking in. We had heard that the sunrises here are pretty amazing. After a star-filled night the […]

Green View

Lori had Friday and Monday off for New Year’s weekend, so we thought it might be a good time to get out of town and spend three of those days on a lake about 2.5 hours north of the capital. It’s […]

Date Day in Vientiane

An unexpected discrepancy in Lori’s work schedule and Noe’s nursery school schedule means the perfect opportunity for heading out into the city sans baby for the first time since moving to Vientiane.

Laos Life: December 2016

Sunsets, birds, weddings, and a mysterious Christmas Eve partial power outage. A look back at the highlights of our first December in Laos.

Ban Haysoke

Spending some time in one of Vientiane’s more intriguing and historic neighborhoods, Haysoke Village, taking in the crumbling Bauhaus architecture, food, and people.